Contest Hosting question.

[unclecanabis]

If a member of the forums wanted to host say, a BE animation contest, new material only, that can be based off from any story that the author would willing allow to be animated and say there was a $50.00 prize. Would this be: A. something that the forums would like to be the cash holder fer.
B. is the $50.00 prize a slap in the face to any decent animator.
C. would there be any any writers within the forums themselves thats would be willing to get there story animated.

Trying to make some incentive fer new material and since my art skills are -5 I figure i can toss half a C note in the ring to get a spark in the right direction.

Would really like to here from the admins on this as far as Permission to do it before I release any rules or guidelines for the contest.

Please be advised that I am talkin a thread contest and not a site contest, so it stands STRICTLY in the Breast Expansion area. (for now BWAHAHAHAHAHA)

[SoylentOrange]

I think $50 for an animation is pretty lowball given current commission rates just for single pics, but hey, you never know what people are willing to go for...

[vadrake]

I'd jump on a 50. Standards are just that, they aren't rules. If a person is "too good" for a gift, they don't need to take it, their loss.

[Tendrak]

I've hosted a few reward contests like this. My advice is to pool more prizes with other people willing to chip in for a good cause like this.

Also make a second and third place. This will encourage more participation.
Even if first is still $50, second is $10 and third is a buy one get one free pretzel at the mall.

If you can get the first prize higher more people will make time to take a shot though, and you'll catch bigger fish too. This is just in my experience.

[Litch]

I think the addition of having the story is a big increment in the amount of work that the animator would have to do. It's one thing to show a straight scene, it's another to start to have to use cinematic techniques to tell the story (that means storyboards, plotting etc etc, not to mention the redundant animation going on that 90% of people would skip to go straight to the BE).

One way to get around it is to go with a theme rather than a progressive story. Like BE from helium tank animations and see how creative people can get with that open brief. Or take a short passage from a work and get people to work with that. I'd have a whack at an animation competition like that for the $50.

[unclecanabis]

kk so we say 150 in prizes 75 fer first 50 fer second and 25 fer 3rd. As far as the story, yeah doin a whole story would make it more difficult. Maybe we can get the guys at BE-story club to come up wit or donate one of there smaller pieces to be the "muse" of the contest? Still would like to hear from a site admin *cough* to get the OK before we get to ahead of oursleves. I am will to throw in 75 which is half the contest prize pool, if any are willing to toss in a few bucks please post here so that peeps see we are REALLY wanting to give em a fair prize for the work. We all know it ain't easy gettin those animations to ride right. Thaks for the info thus far folks.

[Blake Isaac Gordon]

Never hurts to offer trophies...

[unclecanabis]

Originally Posted by Blake Isaac Gordon

Never hurts to offer trophies...

I think 150 in cahs prizes and the knnowledge that yer work is in the top 3 out there is a trophy in itself. But until I can get an Admin from Process to reply to this and say "Yeah we would love for this to happen and we would be glad to hold the funds until the final judement is made" this is gonna be a no go. Also would like ant input on deadlines. I have no idea how ling it takes to produce one of these, sooooo 30 days, 45 days or 60 days for all that sighn up to complete there task? Also if BE-Story blub author or any indepentand author would be willing to get there NON- Illustraded story made into a short lil animation, that would also be helpful, I know it was mentioned that makin these takes alotta dialogue format and such, with a base story template it could make the process alot smoother. Also thinking of makin the animation at least 2 min and no more than 4, so again this is a SHORT animation contest. ADMIN PLEASE ENLIGHTEN US!!!!

[Blake Isaac Gordon]

Originally Posted by unclecanabis

I think 150 in cash prizes and the knowledge that yer work is in the top 3 out there is a trophy in itself.

Being a BE club author I wouldn't take a 50 dollar cash prize with much interest. I like to invest 20 hours per short story and just the offering of 50 bucks doesn't get my muse out of bed.

And the simple fact that even a four minute animation (unless its 'Order of The Stick style) will take more than 8 hours of work might explain the lack of admin response. (or maybe they haven't noticed the thread yet.)

The only reason why I mentioned a trophy is the last TOB story contest awarded three very cool glass and brass trophies. I have my second place sitting happily on my desk.

If some BE story contest offered another cool trophy like that I'd submit a 20-40 page story for free.

So if I were doing an BE animation contest I'd offer 500$ for first prize and 250$ for second and third place. But that is just me.

[56kowboy]

I agree with needing higher prizes. I know just doing a short clip of 30 seconds in poser takes a long time and that's with not even having it at 30 fps. Hand animated has to be at least if not more of a time sink but also requires them to have quite a lot of skill to pull that method off. So yeah if you want quality animation at the time you'll need some good scratch for motivation.

Lets see if each frame takes about 3 minutes to render then (30 fps * 120 seconds * 3 minutes) / 60 minutes = 180 hours to render 2 minutes on a mid-high end machine

Of course if you take out all props and only have the person then it cuts down the time but also looks kinda crappy.

Please anyone correct me if my math is wrong, heads fairly fuzzy right now but regardless it's going to be a lot of time to just render the animation let alone actually setting it up and working on it.

[vadrake]

There's also the chance that you could hold a "new author/artist" contest, where vets generally aren't allowed, but encouraged to help the contestants. This way, you can keep the prizes simple while helping out people who might generally have an interest in this sort of thing.

[Prophet Tenebrae]

In the past, I have seen an artist express a disinterest in contests because there is - of course - the possibility of not winning (and hence, there being no reward for participation) and the fact that judging is subjective... so, the best man may not always win. That was for a piece of art... and of course, animation is orders of magnitude more work intensive.

Also... why are you trying to involve Lorekeep? And, I'm not really sure how he's going to be involved? Thus far you've not solidified any details, as far as I can tell.